How Noel Gallagher asked poet Tony Walsh permission for This Is The Place title

7 August 2019, 12:09 | Updated: 3 October 2019, 14:53

The former Oasis rocker told Radio X how he asked the Manchester poet and writer to use his famous title for his new single and EP.

Noel Gallagher revealed he called up Tony Walsh to ask him a very important question.

The former Oasis rocker's 2019 This Is The Place EP comes along with its dance-inspired title track, and earlier this year he told Radio X how he came to use the name of the Manchester writer's famous poem.

Watch him talk about his new music in our single above.

Speaking to Radio X's Gordon Smart and Matt Morgan, he explained: "I was in the toilet on the way to bed one night and I was singing. I had all the words but I didn't have the This Is The Place bit. And I happened to have beside my bed the poet Tony Walsh from Manchester, his book called This Is The Place and of course the famous poem..."

He added: "I was in the studio the next day so I had a quick re-run of it to fit This Is The Place in, then I called Tony and I said: 'Am I alright for nicking this title?' And he said, 'course you are cocker'".

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Noel Gallagher and Manchester poet Tony Walsh. Picture: Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images & Visionhaus/Corbis via Getty Images

Tony Walsh and Noel Gallagher have a special link after his now famous poem and the Noel-penned Oasis hit Don't Look Back In Anger both became a symbol of defiance after the tragic 2017 Manchester Arena attack.

Walsh was commissioned to write his poem after the atrocity and went on to perform his it at several events including the Manchester vigil the day after the attack, the One Love Manchester concert and the reopening of the Manchester Arena itself.

Watch Tony Walsh read his poem on a tram on the way home from One Love Manchester:

Noel's track also struck a chord after it was sung by a mourner at the vigil in St. Anne's square.

It then went on to be sung across the city, was sung by Ariana Grande and Coldplay at One Love Manchester and was played ahead of Manchester's Great North Run.

Watch Noel Gallagher talk about the importance of the track here:

Earlier this year, Noel told Radio X that the second EP will be “a very Mancunian-sounding record”.

He explained: “I can see guys in anoraks, nodding their heads moodily to it, while checking out each other’s Adidas trainers, [saying] ‘Where you got those from?'"

Listen to This Is The Place here:

Get the tracklist for Noel Gallagher's This Is The Place EP

1. This Is The Place

2. A Dream Is All I Need To Get By

3. Evil Flower

4. This Is The Place (Dense & Pika Remix)

5. Evil Flower (The Reflex Revision)

Noel Gallagher might have asked Tony Walsh for his permission to use his title, but there's no way he'll be asking his brother to bury the hatchet any time soon

The brothers have been estranged since Noel quit the band in 2009, but now it seems there's less chance of a reconciliation than ever.

Asked if it has gone past the point of the pair making up, the Ballad of the Mighty I singer nodded and told The Guardian: "Because I’ve got one fatal flaw in my otherwise perfect makeup as a human being, which is I don’t forgive people.

"Once you start texting my children – and his two sons have been going for her, too – and legitimise my wife being bullied on the internet, where she has to shut down Instagram accounts because of the vile shit being written about her and my daughter, then it ain’t happening.”